male chickens

blatantrereg

I was mulling over the idea that eggs and milk only come from female animals, and the probable conclusion that meant eating eggs and dairy [which I do] = dead bulls and roosters.

With this idea in my mind, I stumbled across this excerpt from Eating Animals

for the past half century, there have actually been two kinds of chickens — broilers and layers — each with distinct genetics. We call them both chickens, but they have starkly different bodies and metabolisms, engineered for different "functions." Layers make eggs. (Their egg output has more than doubled since the 1930s.) Broilers make flesh...


....This raises all kinds of bizarre questions — questions that before I learned about our two types of chickens, I'd never had reason to ask — like, What happens to all of the male offspring of layers? If man hasn't designed them for meat, and nature clearly hasn't designed them to lay eggs, what function do they serve?
They serve no function. Which is why all male layers — half of all the layer chickens born in the United States, more than 250 million chicks a year — are destroyed.

I've no plan or desire to go vegan. It seems to me there might be room in the market for animal-friendly eggs and dairy products though (if they dont exist already).

Breezer

I had this very thought about a year and a half ago after 8 years as a vegetarian. After a lot of searching for animal-friendly eggs and dairy, with no results, I gave up and went vegan. It was a very daunting prospect at the time, but I don't regret it in the slightest. I don't want to discourage you and by all means search for these products, I'd be interested to hear if you find anything (although I don't think I'd ever go back to eating them now). Are you thinking of starting up a business supplying them (not sure what you're getting at when you say "room in the market")?

blatantrereg

Are you thinking of starting up a business supplying them (not sure what you're getting at when you say "room in the market")?

No no. I just meant it seems like there would be a market for any business that did undertake supplying them: I think something like this would make sense from the point of view of a company, as well as the POV of consumers.

Breezer

blatantrereg wrote: »

Are you thinking of starting up a business supplying them (not sure what you're getting at when you say "room in the market")?

No no. I just meant it seems like there would be a market for any business that did undertake supplying them: I think something like this would make sense from the point of view of a company, as well as the POV of consumers.

Maybe, but it really would be a niche market: vegetarians who are vegetarian for ethical reasons, who have considered your above point, who don't wish to go vegan, but accept that they'll essentially have to go vegan outside their own home anyway because restaurants, delis etc. won't be using these super-ethical eggs and dairy. I can't imagine those numbers are very high, which I guess is why it hasn't been done.

CJhaughey

Roosters don't produce much meat, not enough to eat realistically.
What other cultures used to do is make the males into Capons.

MajorMax

Isn't a capon a male chicken or am I wrong?

blatantrereg

MajorMax wrote: »

Isn't a capon a male chicken or am I wrong?

It's a castrated male chicken, according to wikipedia. Meat of castrated male birds is considered better tasting, again according to wikipedia. They sometimes use oestrogen implants to achieve it, rather than a knife. Bizarre. Apparently the difference in taste no longer occurs under modern farming methods.